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Eric Berger

Tom Hardwick is peering into the eyes of of 2,500-year-old coffin. Although that may seem old, by Egyptian standards it’s not. When this coffin was buried in the desert the pyramids had already been built for 2,000 years. In Pharaonic times people followed elaborate funereal rituals. The dead were wrapped both with linen, as well […] …

Among the space geek crowd there’s a lot of excitement about private spaceflight. A number of companies are seeking to provide cheaper access to space and, as part of that, there’s a budding space tourism industry. That is, for a few hundred thousand dollars — or less — companies will soon offer you a seat […] …

Today the Pew Research Center released the results of a poll that included some questions on space and astronauts. In an interesting twist, the poll includes results of both the general public and scientists. For this blog post I’ve chosen to focus on attitudes toward the International Space Station and astronauts. First up is a […] …

Last week Astronaut Terry Virts tweeted a picture of himself in the International Space Station’s cupola wearing a J.J. Watt shirt: This morning I had a chance to speak with Virts, another NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore and European astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Of course I got right to the important question. Is J.J. really the best […] …

The rocket company SpaceX stands at the vanguard of the new space movement, a cadre of companies trying to radically reduce the cost of reaching space and often working outside the traditional government-aerospace contractor relationship. This is a pivotal year for SpaceX, whose charismatic CEO Elon Musk has set a goal of completely upending the […] …

Eric Berger’s note: Because NASA’s Orion spacecraft was recovered by a U.S. Navy vessel neither the media nor public got much insight into the process. However Milt Heflin, a former NASA engineer and flight director, was on board. He had a unique vantage point because not only did he participate in Orion’s recovery, he did […] …

10:10 a.m. UPDATE: They did it! Philae landed on Comet 67P. Amazing. ORIGINAL ENTRY: Today’s the big day. This morning is when the European Space Agency will try to land its Philae spacecraft on the surface of a comet. Here’s a livestream of the event: It’s the first time humans have ever attempted a soft landing […] …

Don’t you just want to hate Russia right about now? A lot of Americans do, particularly after the country appropriated the Crimean Peninsula and has fomented a civil war in Eastern Ukraine. And a lot of people are understandably mad that NASA has to send its astronauts half way around the world, to the former […] …

Shortly after sunrise last Friday morning I caught up with Bill Gerstenmaier, who oversees NASA’s human spaceflight programs. Gerst, as he’s known in the spaceflight community, did not appear to be in a great mood. I chalked it up to fatigue. We were in a small theater in downtown Baikonur, Kazakhstan. About six hours earlier […] …

During the last week a white hummingbird has been flitting around the Country Star Bed and Breakfast. Such birds are quite rare. White hummingbirds are “leucistic”– as in “leukocyte” (white blood cell) and “leukemia”–and they bear light-colored feathers. Leucistic hummingbirds have white, or off-white feathers because they have almost no melanin at all. The photos in […] …